A bullet was mailed to the Russian Embassy in Japan on Tuesday, an embassy spokesman said, the day after a day of protest in Japan over the Kuril Islands sparked a diplomatic exchange.
Sergei Yasenev confirmed local media reports that the Russian embassy in Tokyo had received an envelope containing a bullet and a letter which said "The Northern Territories are Japanese land."
"We link this with activities of ultra-right forces or mentally unstable people," he said, adding that the Japanese police were investigating the incident.
The incident took place amid the heating up of a diplomatic row between Russia and Japan over four islands off Russia's far eastern coast, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Kuril Islands in Russia.
On Monday, during Japan's Northern Territories Day, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent visit to one of the islands an "inexcusable rudeness," sparking an angry reaction from Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the statement, which he said "sharply" contrasted with the "respectable and positive tone" of bilateral meetings between Medvedev and Kan last fall, was "clearly not diplomatic."
Medvedev paid a visit to the island of Kunashir in November 2010. Tokyo described the visit as "very regrettable," while Moscow said the Russian authorities would decide by themselves on their domestic trips. Following Medvedev's visit, Japan temporarily recalled its ambassador to Russia.
Japanese right-wing campaigners dragged the Russian flag along the ground outside the Russian Embassy in Tokyo on Monday and called for the return of the disputed islands. The embassy sent a protest note to the Japanese Foreign Ministry over the incident.
The sparsely populated islands in the Kuril chain between Japan's northern island of Hokkaido and Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula were annexed by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.
February 7 marks the anniversary of the signing in 1855 of the Russian-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, known as the Shimoda Treaty, which Japan is citing as a legal ground for its territorial claims.
The dispute over the islands has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty to formally end WWII hostilities.
TOKYO, February 8 (RIA Novosti)
